[Release] ZDF Mediathek

[fuzzyqtip]

This is my first release of my Boxee app that is using the online catalog of the German television channel ZDF (called Mediathek).

I gathered some experience with my first Boxee app (Arte+7) and started this from scratch. Some of the functions are disabled and greyed out, because they aren't implemented yet. But you can basically find any video that the ZDF Mediathek contains via the search function.



Features (1.0):
* Search
* Playback of all videos in high quality (wmv, mms)
* Nachrichten, Aktuelles, Meist gesehen, Unsere Tipps
* Recognizes playlist-like items (Thema, Topthema, Sendung)

Add this repository to your Boxee: http://boxee.defector.de

You can also directly download the source from here

Known Bugs:
* Search only works with one word
* After video was played label on the left always is UNSERE TIPPS

[Skynetwork]

wow ! many thanks for the 'zdf mediathek' app. one of the best for all german boxee users. great work fuzzyqtip

[masc78]

Thank you! Great work!

[supercollider01]

I've been waiting for this! Great App!

[dottyspog]

Hi fuzzyqtip,

Thank you for the ZDF Mediathek app. It works great! I was wondering if it would be possible to add http://kinder.ard.de to an ARD Mediathek application so that my baby girl can enjoy German language kids' shows.

Just a thought.
.
dottyspog

[fuzzyqtip]

Hi dottyspog,

that's a nice page you found there. It seems great for kids, but here's the deal: although we all pay tax for public television in Germany (GEZ), all public-owned tv channels (except zdf and arte) are not willing to provide their online broadcasts in a common computer-readable way. This makes it really hard to create apps for this channels, because if they change their site (which they do quite often) or even worst (in this case) if they use proprietary formats like flash it is almost not possible to keep these apps updated or create them at all.

On the other side zdf and arte provide their program via XML files with direct links to their videos, which works great. We can only hope that some of the other tv channels realize that that's the way to do it.

[dottyspog]

Sigh, I was afraid that's the case. See, I just bought an Apple TV and installed Boxee on it so that my daughter will have the opportunity to watch German shows. I wouldn't mind purchasing kids' shows if iTunes were more flexible and would allow me to change the iTunes store location to Germany. Unfortunately purchasing German content does require a valid billing address (credit card) in Germany, which I don't have.

Anyway, thank you for sharing your insight with me. I certainly appreciate it and will keep looking for a solution one way or the other :-)

dottyspog

[RZPRK]

hey. austrian public tv shows are now available at http://tvthek.orf.at/. just in case you don't know what to do with your time. thanks by the way for making boxee so much more interesting by making arte & zdf content available in here.

[lance1907]

wow also many thanks for the zdf mediathek and arte +7

i live in austria and i also think it would be great if somebody would built an app for the orf tvthek (http://tvthek.orf.at/)

darukka already made a list with german contents
http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=16492

* ARD Mediathek (ARD selfmade, Free) - http://www.ardmediathek.de
* Film.Bild.de (Movies, Free) - http://film.bild.de/
* DasErste Mediathek (selfmade, Free) - http://mediathek.daserste.de
* MSN Movies (Movies, Free) - http://movies.msn.de/
* ORF TVthek (mostly ORF selfmade, Free) - http://tvthek.orf.at/
* RTL Now (Movies/Series, Free o. VoD) - http://rtl-now.rtl.de/
* SF Videoportal (SF selfmade, Free) - http://videoportal.sf.tv/

i found some more

NEW
* VOX NOW (VOX, selfmade/Series, Free o. VoD) - http://www.voxnow.de/
* Maxdome.de (Movies/Series/Comedy, Premium) - http://www.maxdome.de
* ProSieben Videos (selfmade/Series, free) - http://www.prosieben.at/video/
* N-TV Mediathek (selfmade, free) - http://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/
* N24 Mediacenter (selfmade, Live-TV, free) - http://mediencenter.n24.de/

[bartsidee]

I have added the ZDF library to my BartsdeeTV app as module. You can have a look at it here:
http://forums.boxee.tv/showthread.php?t=25645

It supports the full zdf medithek library with a fast search function and I also added subtitle support for the people interested (only available for specific streams)

I will be looking to support more german channels, if you wan't you can help by developing a module yourself. BatsideeTV has a modular framework so that other developers can work on it.